Zombie Apocalypse: Never Die Alone, is the sequel to the the game Zombie Apocalypse that came out in 2009 for XBLA. I did not even know that game existed in 2009, but it got pretty solid reviews from players and critics, averaging around 65-75% positive scores. Both of the games are old school dual stick shooters that have you fighting hordes of zombies throughout a campaign. The new one, Never Die Alone, has four player coop and a ten mission long campaign. You can play through the campaign alone with three A.I. taking control of the other three characters. There are four characters in total, all of which can level up attributes, and each one has different weapons plus special abilities. It came out on yesterday on the 28th for XBLA and PSN, costing $10. It is published by Konami and developed by Backbone Entertainment. 




Right off the bat Zombie Apocalypse will remind you Dead Nation or Nation Red, both of which provide similar gameplay and looks, but Zombie Apocalypse is focused making an enjoyable arcade style cooperative experience. Dead Nation on the other hand, probably the most popular zombie game on PSN, has a very dark and long campaign with a lot of customization and upgrades options. Zombie Apocalypse let's you upgrade stats like speed or damage, but it doesn't have any armor or items to find. Dead Nation and Zombie Apocalypse can be seen as opposites, they both have campaigns, they both use the same control style, they both have multiplayer, but their gameplay styles are opposites. Both games do track your score and have multipliers, multipliers that tank as soon as you get hit once by an enemy.



The demo for Zombie Apocalypse: Never Die Alone, let's you play two missions cooperatively or alone. The first mission has you going through linear streets as you fight off seemingly scripted waves of zombies. You can find a single survivor and save them, which will increase your score and also counts towards your mission objectives. Each map has optional objectives that you can achieve in order to earn you some points and cash. Cash is what you use to buy a level up for an attribute, but each attribute needs experience from killing zombies in order to be ready to level up. The game nails the arcade feeling, especially with all of the dumb phrases and dialogue that the characters yell out from to time. What it doesn't nail is being very deep. This game provides some pretty simple mechanics and requires you to work with all of the characters in order to survive, but it doesn't give you a lot to go for other than score and leveling up attributes. The combat itself is fairly simple as well seeing as how the only weapon choices you have are based on character and each character has their own weapons which cannot be changed. Each characters have their own special ability, like  a bait bomb or turret, but they don't seem to have any way to evolve either.


If you are looking for a zombie game with some fun simple cooperative gameplay then you would probably enjoy Zombie Apocalypse, but if you are looking for anything deeper or more intensive, like Left 4 Dead or Dead Nation, then you best look elsewhere. The demo is available on XBLA and PSN, so give those a shots if you feel even slightly interested in this game. If you want to see some reviews then I will leave some links below. Thanks for reading and have a great weekend.
Main Website: http://www.konami.com/games/zombie2

Reviews
IGN PS3 Review: http://ps3.ign.com/articles/121/1210635p1.html
Xbox Magazine Review: http://www.oxmonline.com/zombie-apocalypse-never-die-alone-review


*Images from: http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/10/25/zombie-apocalypse-never-die-alone-infests-psn-today/

-Written by Sean Cargle